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State Farm & Other Insurance Companies Are Major Investors In Fossil Fuels

People are beginning to wake up to the new reality, which is that human-caused climate change is rendering their homes uninsurable. Without insurance, they face financial ruin if a wildfire, hurricane, or other calamity destroys their property. The lack of insurance prevents people from obtaining loans to repair or rebuild their homes. It also makes it harder to sell their homes to buyers who need a mortgage. But while it seems entirely logical for insurance companies to shy away from scenarios that carry higher than normal risks, what is not so logical is that the same companies are also propping up the very fossil fuel companies that are the primary cause of the global overheating.

Insure Our Future focuses on the insurance industry’s ties to the climate crisis. Risalat Khan, a senior strategist with Insure Our Future, told Truthout recently, “The insurance industry has the option of cutting exposure to fossil fuel expansion overnight, but rather than doing that, they’re continuing to play both sides.” There is a broad consensus that global heating is driving the rise and intensity of extreme weather events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has concluded as an “established fact” that “human-induced greenhouse gas emissions” have increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather. It has also concluded with “high confidence” that fire weather conditions “will become more frequent in some regions at higher levels of global warming.” Burning of fossil fuels is responsible “for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions,” according to the United Nations.

Steve Hanley

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